Lust - 1 (18 page)

“And I mean, she is wonderful,” he continued, “but …”

But?
That was more like it.

“Wel , this last week I’ve just been—”

“Harper! Harper! Over here!”

Oh God, not now.

Distracted by the shril voice, Adam broke off what he was saying, and they both looked up to see a pale, skinny girl waving frantical y from a few tables away.

“Harper! Look, we’re here too!”

A ditzy blond sophomore who’d decided last spring to make Harper her role model, life trainer, and personal guru, whether Harper liked it or not.

It wasn’t enough that the girl fol owed her around so much at school that Harper had dubbed her “Mini-Me”? She had to fol ow Harper
here,
too? Had to ruin what might have been her perfect night?

“Just ignore her,” she urged Adam. “What were you about to say?”

Adam paused, then laughed nervously. “You know what? Forget it.”

“But—”

“No, you go talk to your friends—I’m heading off to the bathroom.” He grinned. “You’l stil be around when I get back, though, right?”

“I don’t know, Adam.” Harper looked pointedly at the next table over, where a middle-aged guy with too much stomach and too few teeth was chugging his beer, soggy cigarette lodged firmly in the corner of his mouth. “Lots of hot prospects around here—once you disappear, who knows who I’l find….” He laughed, and Harper forced herself to join in. But as soon as he turned away, her face turned to ice. What if, when Adam came back, he’d lost his nerve, and never said whatever it was he’d been about to tel her? She couldn’t believe that one loser with bad timing had just torpedoed her moment—and here came Mini-Me now, dragging along her equal y bland best friend, aka Mini-She.

Both apparently gluttons for punishment.

“Hey, Harper, didn’t you see us over there? I can’t believe that you’re here too!” Mini-Me gushed.

“Isn’t the band great?” Mini-She asked excitedly.

“Yeah, and the lead singer is so hot—don’t you think?” Mini-Me added.

Harper looked up on stage, where scruffy Reed Sawyer, stoner, sixth-year senior, wannabe badass, al -around burnout—and lead singer of the Blind Monkeys—was torturing a guitar with only slightly less incompetence than the rest of his band of losers.

“I think love must be blind
and
deaf,” Harper drawled.

The girls looked back at her blankly.

Harper was undecided. Despite their utter cluelessness and stalker tendencies, she rarely went out of her way to torture these girls—not out of pity or virtue, but because they were embarrassingly easy targets. On the other hand, as demonstrated by tonight’s disaster, her tolerance had apparently been a hideous mistake….

“Hey, you know who else is here?” Mini-Me asked.

“Britney Spears?” Harper guessed.

“No way—but how cool would that be?!” Mini-Me said. Apparently she’d been absent the day sarcasm genes were handed out. “No—
Kaia’s
here! And you should see what she’s wearing—she says it’s from
Dolce and Gabbana
.”

“So cool,” Mini-She sighed appreciatively.

Harper rol ed her eyes, taking only minimal joy in the fact that her little friends had apparently intruded on the new girl’s night too. The last thing she needed right now was a Kaia lovefest. Enough was enough.

“You know, the scene here is getting kind of lame,” Harper confided. “I think pretty soon I’m going to head out to this party I heard about. You should—oh wait, no, they probably wouldn’t let you in.”

“What?”

“Where?”

“A party?”

Good, she’d hooked them. Now, to reel them in. “Yeah, some col ege guys who haven’t gone back to school yet,” she continued. “They’re set up in this old warehouse along the highway.”

“No way!” Mini-Me said breathlessly. “So … think we could come with you?”

“Wel … I probably shouldn’t even have told you about it.” The girls looked crestfal en. “But since I have …” She pretended to stop and think for a moment, and then, “Hey, why not? If I give you the password, they should let you in.”

Harper wrote down an address and “password” on a napkin and surreptitiously passed it to the girls. “You shouldn’t wait for me, though—I have to stick around here for a while to take care of Adam.” She leaned in and lowered her voice. “Don’t tel anyone, but he and Beth had another fight.” There, that should get the gossip chain started and hopeful y put a nice shiny nail in the coffin of that relationship.

“But you know what,” Harper said, smiling at her own bright idea, “why don’t you invite Kaia along? I’m sure she’d love to see what a good party looks like around here—and she certainly won’t want to spend the rest of her night in this dump.”

“Thanks, Harper, that’s a great idea,” Mini-Me enthused. “You’re real y the best, you know that?”

Harper just smiled. “Actual y, I do.”

The girls took off, and Harper watched them as they headed back to their table and col ected their stuff. Looked like they were taking the bait. She felt a momentary twinge of guilt at the thought of them wandering through a dark and empty warehouse wondering where the frat boys were and where the keg was hidden—but Harper didn’t believe in rewarding stupidity with leniency. And at least this way they would learn their lesson.

Maybe.

Now if only they could drag Kaia along with them. She peered through the crowd to check out Kaia’s table—but Kaia was gone. Home for the night? It seemed unlikely that such a wild party girl—or so she claimed—would have given up on the nightlife so early, pathetic as it was. More likely, she was off somewhere looking for trouble.

Speaking of which … Adam had been gone forever, and the bathroom just wasn’t that far away.

So where was he?

“You know you want me,” Kaia whispered, her breath hot and moist against his ear.

Adam said nothing, but didn’t—couldn’t—push her away.

He’d pushed her away in the motel room—and she’d come back.

He’d pushed her away in the locker room—and she’d come back.

He’d pushed her away when she accosted him outside the bathroom—and yet she was stil here. Stil had her arms wrapped around him.

He was so tired of pushing.

And she was so beautiful.

It amazed him—how Kaia and Beth could be so different, how Kaia could be the opposite of almost everything he loved about Beth (and he did love her, he reminded himself, reassured himself). Kaia was hard where Beth was soft, confident where Beth was shy, determined where Beth was so easily deterred. Kaia’s jet black hair, her sparkling green eyes, her icy beauty—they were nothing like the silky blond comfort he found in Beth’s arms.

So different, and yet—

And yet he wanted them both so much.

But Beth would never forgive him.

“Beth would never have to know,” she whispered, as if she’d read his thoughts.

Or had he spoken them aloud?

Adam no longer knew. Kaia’s perfume washed over him, mixing with the smoky air, and he was suffocating, he was dizzy, he was lost in the pounding of the music, the vibrations running through the floor, through their bodies, the thunderous bass. He was lost in the sight of her swol en lips, her wide eyes, her body pressing against his in the darkness.

He thought of Beth, of the look on her face when she’d walked away from him outside the school, of the sound of her voice through her tears, tel ing him she didn’t trust him, could never trust him. He thought of what Beth would think, what she would do if she saw him here with Kaia. Thought of proving her wrong, thought of proving her right—

And then, as Kaia’s hands tightened around his waist, as his chest pressed against hers, as her tongue slipped past his lips—he wasn’t thinking about Beth anymore.

She should never have gone looking for him.

That was al Harper could think, the only words her mind could muster as she stood frozen, staring at the two of them. Together. Wrapped in each other’s arms.

Harper wanted to say something—wanted to spit out a venomous one-liner that would make them leap apart in shame. She wanted to shoot them both a murderous look, then shrug her shoulders, spin on her heel, and walk off in disgust.

A perfect exit.

Classy.

Cool.

Unconcerned.

But she had no words—she’d lost the power to speak, to stalk away. It was al she could do to keep standing, breathing … watching.

And so, paralyzed, half-hidden by the darkness—not that either of them would have noticed her had she been lit up by a spotlight—she stayed, wanting nothing more than to turn away But couldn’t.

Couldn’t stop watching him, his hands running through her hair, his lips pressed against hers, her hands running up and down his back, then their hands clasped, their fingers intertwined—Kaia’s hands, Kaia’s fingers, Kaia’s lips where she had always dreamed that hers would, should be ….

No.

Harper took a deep breath and forced herself to turn her back on the couple, on her best friend, on what the night could have been. Turned away.

She would not cry. No matter what, she would not cry—and she would not stay.

She pushed her way through the smoky bar and threw herself out into the cool desert night.

Let him wonder where she’d gone.

Let him find his own ride home.

And—she knew he would.

Hating her, hating him—hating herself for being so weak, for being so pathetic, for not being able to hate him at al —not even now, when the two of them, together, al over each other, was al she could see, Harper walked aimlessly down the empty street.

She was shaking, but she didn’t feel the cold—could feel nothing, except the painful, empty hole in the pit of her stomach. Her bare hand, which had so recently been warmed by his touch. And final y, after a few blocks and a few deep breaths, the rage.The hot blaze of anger—and the cool certainty that this was not over, that this was not a fight she was prepared to lose.

Adam would be hers … and Kaia would be sorry.

They went back to the abandoned motel. Of course.

Adam felt like he was watching the scene happen to someone else. That couldn’t be him, clutching Kaia’s hand, fol owing her down the long and dusty hal ways and into one of the cramped, dark rooms. It must be someone else giving in to her warm touch, the soft pressure of her hands forcing him down onto the mattress. It couldn’t be him.

Al his wil power had drifted away, al the excitement and energy that had surged through him in the club as he final y let himself go and ran his hands over her body, as she nibbled his earlobe and whispered, “Let’s get out of here”—al that had seeped away. This wasn’t a crime committed in the heat of passion—it was a crime of omission, a failure to stop the chain of events that had started in the bar, that had brought him here.

But who could stop an avalanche? Who could stop a train wreck?

Inevitability.

That was the word he was groping for. Everything had taken on a strange tinge of inevitability, as if everything that had happened in the last few weeks, everything since he’d first seen her, first taken her hand in his, had led directly to this moment. To Kaia.

She stood before him and, with a sultry smile, pul ed off her halter top, revealing the black lace bra that lay beneath.

Then off went the shimmering silver skirt.

Off went the lace.

She crawled into bed beside him.

“Your turn,” she whispered, and began unbuttoning his jeans.

A warm heat flushed through him and he felt his lost passion returning—and along with it, his doubt.

“Kaia,” he said softly, al owing her to pul his T-shirt over his head, to kiss her way across his bare chest as his hands, as if of their own accord, massaged the soft contours of her body. “Kaia, I’m not sure we should …”

“Shh,” she whispered, stopping him with a kiss. “Don’t worry, I’l be gentle.”

And off went the boxers.

The phone rang and rang, but there was no answer. As the voice mail kicked in again, Adam hung up in disgust. He’d left too many messages, and his voice was beginning to take on a distinct tinge of desperation. But where was she?